Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front, 1941-1942: Schwerpunkt

Timoshenko did gain a certain amount of tactical and operational-level surprise when his forces attacked AOK 6 at 0630 hours on 12 May. It was a clear, sunny day with temperatures reaching 22°C (71°F). Both assault formations began the offensive in style, with powerful sixty-minute artillery preparations along large portions of Paulus’ front line, followed by air strikes that struck German artillery positions further back. At 0730 hours, the attacking Soviet armies committed shock groups, each formed around a rifle division and a tank brigade with forty to forty-five tanks. All told, 300 tanks were committed in the north and 124 in the south, and front-line German infantrymen were shocked by the appearance of so many tanks. Initially, Soviet armour was used strictly in an infantry support role to help their own infantry reduce the German defences, which were based upon battalion-size Stützpunkten (strongpoints). The 28th and 38th Armies achieved considerable success when two of their shock groups, spearheaded by the 36th and 90th Tank Brigades, routed two kampfgruppen of the 294.Infanterie-Division and captured the town of Nepokrytaya. In this sector, the German infantry had only three 5cm Pak 38 guns to oppose more than ninety Soviet tanks; the KV-1 and Matilda II tanks quickly overwhelmed the few panzerjägers, which incited a rare ‘tank panic’ among the German infantrymen.²³ German artillerymen put up a stiff fight in the streets of Nepokrytaya with their 10.5cm l.FH18 howitzers firing over open sights and managing to knock out twelve Matilda II tanks, but lost two complete artillery batteries in the process. In the south, the 6th Army massed four rifle divisions and three tank brigades against two German infantry divisions, yet only managed to advance 6–8km on the first day; the flanks of both the 62.Infanterie-Division and the 454.Sicherungs-Division were pushed in, but neither division was crushed by the weight of Soviet firepower. While Paulus’ infantry was severely stressed on the first day of Timoshenko’s offensive – sometimes showing signs of panic – they avoided destruction by either trading space for time or entrenching themselves in fortified positions like Ternovaya.

Timoshenko’s assessment that the Germans would not commit their armoured reserve in time proved wrong on the first day, when von Bock directed Paulus to move both the 3 and 23.Panzer-Divisionen up to the front to support the hard-pressed XVII Armeekorps. Neither division was prepared to launch an immediate counterstroke and von Bock instructed Paulus – who was a novice commander by German standards – to avoid committing them until he could ensure a coordinated effort with Luftwaffe support. Consequently, the shock groups of the 28th and 38th Armies crushed the remainder of the 294.Infanterie-Division on the morning of 13 May and captured Peremoga, just 18km west of Kharkov. It thus came as quite a shock when, at 1230 hours, Kampfgruppe Schmitt-Ott from 3.Panzer-Division (III/Panzer-Regiment 6 and I/Schützen Regiment 3) and the 23.Panzer-Division struck the two lead rifle divisions of the 38th Army near the Babka river. The German armour caught both Soviet rifle divisions in the open and routed them; some Soviet artillery batteries engaged the German tanks but were quickly overrun.

Amazingly, only three German tanks were destroyed and nineteen disabled out of 262 committed to the counterattack. The Soviet 38th Army commander foolishly decided to combine his three tank brigades involved in infantry support into the 22nd Tank Corps to provide a counterweight to the German armour, but the formation of this ad hoc command deprived the 38th Army’s rifle units of tank support at a critical moment. Furthermore, the 22nd Tank Corps had just twenty-two T-34s and no KV-1s, the rest being light tanks and British tanks. Timoshenko reacted to the German armoured counterattack by diverting the 6th Guards Tank Brigade of 28th Army – which was still advancing – to reinforce the faltering 38th Army, thereby further weakening the northern pincer. Timoshenko also became fixated on eliminating the encircled German Kampfgruppe Grüner in Stützpunkt Ternovaya and committed significant resources toward this task – a mistake the Germans would later commit themselves at Bastogne in 1944.